BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
Steve Outing, columnist for Editor & Publisher, writes about journalists who blog:
There are two principal types of employed journalist bloggers:
1. Those who are very careful about what they blog, never getting too controversial and seldom expressing opinions. Their employers know what they're doing and support them as long as they don't do anything that might put the news organization in a bad light.
2. Those who feel stymied by their media-company employers from writing what they want -- who look at the larger blog world and feel annoyed at their managers because they're not allowed such freedom of expression.
The former group was more than willing to talk to me, on the record. But the latter group would only talk off the record -- for fear of reprisals. Some keep their blogging secret from their managers, or at least try to. They resent being told to live to a standard of near-absolute objectivity even when they're not on company hours.
Ah... but being a freelance journalist or former journalist who blogs is great fun.
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